Wednesday, August 6, 2008

He was the great American hope, the first African American boxer to fight for the title in nearly thirty years. He was charismatic and strong, a hero to an entire race of people before he became a hero to a country. He served his country in wartime. He fought Adolf Hitler´s chosen boxer twice. He cavorted with numerous women. He was the first black golfer in a Professional Golfing Association event. He broke down walls and then faded into obscurity thanks to the same country he served. His name? Joe Louis.

Leave it to HBO Sports to showcase the boxer born Joe Louis Barrowman. After all, this is the premium cable channel which brought us the harrowing "Sand and Sorrow," the simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking "Coma" and a plethora of other documentaries meant to shed light on an overlooked aspect of our lives. The public knows the name Joe Louis. Perhaps from Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, home of the Red Wings. Maybe they know him from his epic fight against German Max Schmelling in 1938 (avenging his first loss-to Schmelling-two year earlier). What "Joe Louis: America´s Hero…Betrayed" does, though, is provide a comprehensive history of the fighter, from the first bout in 1934 through his tragic death in 1981.

The lions share of the emphasis is placed on Louis´s impact on the African American community, as it should be. Using stock footage of fights and press conferences, still photos and current interviews, HBO Sports provides as comprehensive a look as it can at the man and the myth. To hear poet Maya Angelou wax on about the way people responded to Louis is a wonder to behold. Consider this: Louis was given a set of rules to live by, owing to the race riots following the last black heavyweight champion of the world claiming the belt. For instance, he could not raise his arms in victory on a white opponent or have a picture taken with a white woman.

What may come as a shock to most people is the overt racism leveled at Louis, outside of the rules imposed on him. Sports writers used different adjectives to describe his race. They go by in newspaper clippings, probably the docs funniest moment (for the sheer number of nicknames, not the actual names). Among them: the Brown Bomber, Dark Destroyer, Black Lightning, Sepia Socker, Chocolate Soldier…you get the point. These are newspaper men finding a way to integrate latent racism into their supposedly objective stories.

Against the backdrop of segregation and the looming World War II, listening to accounts of communities hanging out their windows for a small sliver of radio coverage…to understand what this singular man meant to so many people across the country. There is a palpable sense of history unfolding before our eyes when Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Bill Cosby, among others, revel in Louis. An added layer comes in the form of Jimmy Carter as he recounts his father allowing black neighbors to listen to the broadcast. Louis, it turns out, wasn´t just a hero for his community. He became a hero for the entire country.

If there can be one criticism of the doc it is this: with the vast resources of HBO Sports and its parent company (and even Time Warner), the usual parade of sports personalities are left on the sidelines. Where is Bob Costas or Ahmad Rashad or Stuart Scott or Bryant Gumbel? It is absolutely important to have writers from the time recount their memories of Louis, but there is a stark dividing line between the interviewees. The writers are, nearly to a man, white while everyone else is black. There is no need to have this dividing line. You can bet in a doc on Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, all of these people would be put in front of the camera. And since it can be successfully argued that Louis is important than either of those men in the greater social context, I felt strangely let down in the end.

He was the great American hope, the first African American boxer to fight for the title in nearly thirty years. He was charismatic and strong, a hero to an entire race of people before he became a hero to a country. He served his country in wartime. He fought Adolf Hitler´s chosen boxer twice. He cavorted with numerous women. He was the first black golfer in a Professional Golfing Association event. He broke down walls and then faded into obscurity thanks to the same country he served. His name? Joe Louis.

Leave it to HBO Sports to showcase the boxer born Joe Louis Barrowman. After all, this is the premium cable channel which brought us the harrowing "Sand and Sorrow," the simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking "Coma" and a plethora of other documentaries meant to shed light on an overlooked aspect of our lives. The public knows the name Joe Louis. Perhaps from Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, home of the Red Wings. Maybe they know him from his epic fight against German Max Schmelling in 1938 (avenging his first loss-to Schmelling-two year earlier). What "Joe Louis: America´s Hero…Betrayed" does, though, is provide a comprehensive history of the fighter, from the first bout in 1934 through his tragic death in 1981.

The lions share of the emphasis is placed on Louis´s impact on the African American community, as it should be. Using stock footage of fights and press conferences, still photos and current interviews, HBO Sports provides as comprehensive a look as it can at the man and the myth. To hear poet Maya Angelou wax on about the way people responded to Louis is a wonder to behold. Consider this: Louis was given a set of rules to live by, owing to the race riots following the last black heavyweight champion of the world claiming the belt. For instance, he could not raise his arms in victory on a white opponent or have a picture taken with a white woman.

What may come as a shock to most people is the overt racism leveled at Louis, outside of the rules imposed on him. Sports writers used different adjectives to describe his race. They go by in newspaper clippings, probably the docs funniest moment (for the sheer number of nicknames, not the actual names). Among them: the Brown Bomber, Dark Destroyer, Black Lightning, Sepia Socker, Chocolate Soldier…you get the point. These are newspaper men finding a way to integrate latent racism into their supposedly objective stories.

Against the backdrop of segregation and the looming World War II, listening to accounts of communities hanging out their windows for a small sliver of radio coverage…to understand what this singular man meant to so many people across the country. There is a palpable sense of history unfolding before our eyes when Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Bill Cosby, among others, revel in Louis. An added layer comes in the form of Jimmy Carter as he recounts his father allowing black neighbors to listen to the broadcast. Louis, it turns out, wasn´t just a hero for his community. He became a hero for the entire country.

If there can be one criticism of the doc it is this: with the vast resources of HBO Sports and its parent company (and even Time Warner), the usual parade of sports personalities are left on the sidelines. Where is Bob Costas or Ahmad Rashad or Stuart Scott or Bryant Gumbel? It is absolutely important to have writers from the time recount their memories of Louis, but there is a stark dividing line between the interviewees. The writers are, nearly to a man, white while everyone else is black. There is no need to have this dividing line. You can bet in a doc on Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, all of these people would be put in front of the camera. And since it can be successfully argued that Louis is important than either of those men in the greater social context, I felt strangely let down in the end.

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